Cypriot authorities on Wednesday were monitoring a group of five boats carrying around 500 migrants, detected by radar heading towards the island’s shores from Lebanon.
The boats were intercepted in international waters by two Cypriot vessels about 50 nautical miles off the Lebanese coast, and negotiations are underway with Lebanon to accept the people back.
According to unconfirmed information, two of the boats were forced back to Lebanon, while the fate of the remaining three remains unknown.
“These people are trapped in a cruel and dangerous game between Cyprus and Lebanon and remain at sea with no food or water and in urgent need of help,” Alarmphone, an advocacy group, wrote on X.
The operation, led by the Cypriot Marine Police and the National Guard, has been shrouded in secrecy, with Minister of the Interior Konstantinos Ioannou declining to provide details. “It is an operational matter,” he told reporters on the sidelines of a meeting with a local government body in Nicosia on Wednesday.
Ioannou reiterated the government’s commitment to tackling the migrant issue, citing recent visits by Cypriot delegations to Lebanon and upcoming visits by European officials. “We have also implemented our measures, like the suspension of examining new asylum applications, which has the backing of the European Commission,” he said.
The operation, codenamed “Alasia,” deployed the Cypriot Navy vessel ‘Alasia’ and three Marine Police boats, ‘Theseus’, ‘Evagoras’, and ‘Poseidon,’ approximately 65 nautical miles from the Cypriot coast.
‘Evagoras’ and ‘Poseidon’ were tasked with providing humanitarian assistance, while ‘Alasia’ and ‘Theseus’ patrolled the Cyprus-Lebanon sea border to deter migrant flows.
Nicosia last weekend announced it was suspending the processing of asylum applications amid a sharp increase in the number of Syrians arriving in Cyprus from Lebanon. It wants its European Union partners to reconsider the status of Syria, now out of bounds for returns.
(File photo)
Read more:
